


starting new chapters

by weegee1204



Series: For Future Reference Universe [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Dads Patton and Janus, Kid Logic | Logan Sanders, Librarian Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25736098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weegee1204/pseuds/weegee1204
Summary: if Virgil had a dollar for every time a random chatterbox little kid came up to him at the library and not-so-gracefully pulled him down a path of learning about love in all forms, he'd have one dollar. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened even once, right?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders, Moceit is largely in the background for the first few chapters, but Anamoceit is the endgame
Series: For Future Reference Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858879
Comments: 39
Kudos: 149





	starting new chapters

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the third work in my ['For Future Reference' series!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858879)  
> i really hope y'all enjoy it, it's been a lot of fun to write so far and i cannot wait to continue it <3  
> also, each chapter will have a guide at the end to clarify any mispronounced/misspoken words Logan might have said. he is Babey and he makes mistakes sometimes and we love him for it  
> (also also, yes, the summary is a Phineas and Ferb reference. P+F fans rise up!)

“... And then you just select if you want it in black and white or color, then select the file and send it to the printer,” Virgil droned. It wasn’t that he was _trying_ to sound disinterested, but after the last few years he’s pretty sure he could recite these instructions in his sleep.

Luckily, the patron he was helping either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and after they left Virgil had no qualms about slouching over at his desk again. It was just… one of _those_ days, okay? The weather was shitty and the library was empty and he’d forgotten to charge his phone last night, so by the afternoon he was well and thoroughly bored out of his mind.

His eyes slid over the sea of empty tables in front of him until they reached the book cart at the end of his desk. Even from here, he could tell it was stacked to the brink with books that need reshelving.

Virgil stared at the cart. Maybe if he blinked, they’d disappear and he could go back to slowly dying at his desk.

He blinked. The books were still there.

Ugh. _Ugh_. Fine. He supposed he should actually try to do work when he’s at work.

He heaved himself out of his rolly chair, and with one more glance around to make sure no one else was coming up to the reference desk, he set off with the squeaky old cart to reshelve the nonfiction stacks.

It didn’t take long for Virgil to get into a rhythm. Check the book’s Dewey Decimal number, find its spot on the shelf, and sort it in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. Occasionally he’d have to switch a few books around that were in the wrong order, and there were a couple books that were meant to be in a different section altogether, but other than that it was pretty chill.

Virgil picked up a book— 470, meaning it was probably something about the Latin language— and leaned down to shove it into the empty space on the shelf.

Instead he found a pair of eyes staring back at him.

“Jesus!” Virgil gasped, jumping back in shock. The eyes— which he now saw were hidden behind a small pair of glasses— darted out of sight from where they’d been peeking through the empty space. Virgil watched as a tiny figure moved down the row on the other side of the shelf and whipped around into the aisle he was standing in.

“Mr. Virgil!”

Virgil blinked, huffing a small laugh at the sight of the three and a half foot tall kid smiling up at him from the end of the row.

“Hey there, Logan,” he replied. “You good?”

Logan brightened even further upon Virgil remembering his name. “Yes, thank you, I am very good, thank you!”

Virgil could’ve guessed that would be his answer based on everything about his appearance right now. He was positively beaming, practically vibrating in place from how happy he seemed. It had been a few weeks since he’d last seen the kid— Virgil had intentionally crafted his work schedule so that he could _avoid_ all of the library’s children’s programs— but he’d forgotten that today was the monthly adult book club meeting, which is where Logan’s dads probably were.

Logan’s dads. Patton, tall and broad with strong hands and a sunny smile, and Janus, whose shorter and leaner stature was more than made up for by the dark depth of his eyes. The two of them together had provided Virgil with more than enough daydream material since they’d met by chance, thanks to Logan.

Not that he knew anything about them. Or even _knew_ them at all. It was just easier to visualize the scenes in his books if he had faces to put with the names, and sometimes he might imagine that it was Patton’s face on the roguish pirate with a gentle touch, or that the elite assassin with a heart of gold wore Janus’ intoxicating half-smile—

...And with that thought, he’d officially become a creepy weirdo who fantasized about people he barely knew as the leads in his romance novels. Great. Awesome. Love that for him.

“Whatcha got there?” Virgil asked, bringing himself back to the conversation at hand. He nodded down at the small, empty-looking bag Logan had been dragging on the floor.

Logan grinned again, holding it up so that Virgil could see the red-and-blue fabric adorned with a picture of a dinosaur.

“Daddy and Papa got me a dinosaur backpack because I’m in kindergarten now!”

“They did?” Virgil asked, putting a bit more enthusiasm into his words in order to not offend Logan. He wasn’t really used to talking with kids, but he really didn’t wanna make the kid sad by not putting enough energy in his responses.

When the kid only nodded, bouncing on his heels and clearly waiting for something, Virgil tried again. “It’s a very cool backpack, bud. I like it.”

That did it, apparently. “I like it, too!”

Virgil nodded, eyes shifting between the cart and Logan. He really did need to shelve these books.

“Wanna walk with me while I put all the books back?”

Logan nodded, already talking again as he followed Virgil pushing the rackety cart down the row.

“I used to read a lot of books about dinosaurs when I was little,” he continued, “so I know lots about them. This is a _sauropod_ dinosaur, it has a long neck and eats leaves, and a little bit ago Daddy and I watched 'The Land Before Time' and Littlefoot is a _sauropod_ dinosaur but they don’t call him that in the movie, they just call him a long-neck, and also in the movie there are other dinosaurs named Cera and Ducky and Petrie and Spike—”

Virgil glanced at his watch. The book club only had about fifteen more minutes, so he waited for Logan to take a breath before gently interrupting, “Do you wanna keep telling me about 'The Land Before Time', or do you wanna tell me about kindergarten?”

For a second, he worried that he’d offended the kid by the way his eyes went wide, but after a second he realized it was with barely contained delight.

“I wanna— oh! I wanna tell you about kindergarten!” Logan exclaimed, nearly tripping over his words in his excitement. “Mr. Virgil, did you know I have a green card?”

Virgil paused with his hand halfway between his cart and a shelf. “You… have a green card?”

Logan nodded.

“Ms. Christian says we all have green cards, and if I’m bad then it gets flipped to yellow, and if I’m bad _again_ it gets flipped to red,” he explained. “It’s a behave-er chart.”

“Ah,” Virgil said in bemused understanding. “I get it.”

Logan nodded again, continuing, “She told us all of the classroom rules and we repeated her and she said we had to do a try-er run today to help us learn the rules and lots of people got their cards flipped to yellow but I didn’t! And she said if my card stays green all week, I will get a sticker!” He said this part with a hushed anticipation, and Virgil bit back a laugh.

“What kind of sticker?” he asked. Logan froze, face furrowing in concentration. Virgil took advantage of the break to actually shelve some of the books on his cart.

“...I don’t know,” Logan finally replied. “I will have to ask Ms. Christian tomorrow. I’m going back to kindergarten tomorrow.”

“I figured,” Virgil replied. “What else did you do at kindergarten?”

Logan hummed for a moment before exclaiming, “Oh! In the morning we colored our names for our name tags and I drew mine with blue crayons because blue is mine and Papa’s favorite color.”

He tugged on Virgil’s hand, causing the librarian to stop everything else and look down at him.

“What’s your favorite color?”

Virgil paused, his lips quirking into a smile. “Purple.”

Logan gave a satisfied nod. “Purple is a good color. Your necklace is purple.”

“Yep.” It was a lanyard, but he didn’t care enough to correct Logan. He pushed the cart into the next row. “What happened after you colored?”

“We played!” Logan chirped. “Ms. Christian has a _lot_ of stuff in her classroom. I played a game where I put blocks next to each other with numbers written on them and I got all the way to a hundred!”

“No way!” Virgil replied with exaggerated surprise. Logan nodded excitedly.

“It was so much fun! And then it was lunchtime, and Daddy made me a peanut butter and jam sandwich and a clemen-time and some juice. Today Elliott was the line leader and Kai was the door holder but I think I want to be the door holder more than the line leader because the door holder gets to walk next to the teacher.”

“That makes sense,” Virgil responded. He looked down at the kid, and decided to add, “Plus, you seem responsible enough to be the door holder.”

Judging by the way Logan’s face lit it, it was a good thing to say. “I am _responsible_ enough, thank you! Papa said that, too. Daddy said I have a responsible-ty to be the line leader if Ms. Christian asks me to, and I guess that it is an important job like the door holder, but I will be very happier if I can be the door holder.”

Virgil nodded as he finally managed to shelve the last book on the cart, when he then swung around until it was positioned neatly at the end of one shelving unit.

“So what happened next?” he asked, gesturing to Logan to follow him back to his desk. He tried to walker slower than normal, seeing as he had incredibly gangly legs and Logan was the size of a pencil. He didn’t say a word when the kid grabbed his hand and began swinging it between them.

“We went back to the classroom and we did rug time and Ms. Christian read a book,” Logan said. “But it was a picture book, though, and I told her I read chapter books and she said that was nice but I have to be quiet during rug time. Then she gave us our writing books and told us we had homework.”

Virgil’s brow furrowed. “Homework?”

Logan nodded. “I have to draw three picture about things I like,” he said seriously. “And I have to talk about why I like them.”

“Oh, I see,” Virgil replied, nodding slowly. That makes sense; that’s the kind of ‘homework’ they give in kindergarten.

“But I— I can’t think of the _three_ things I like most,” Logan explained, irritated. “And I asked Ms. Christian if I could draw more and she said just do three. But I like a _lot_ of things, Mr. Virgil!”

Virgil gave a sympathetic smile to Logan’s conundrum. “What do you like, Logan?”

The little boy sighed, dropping Virgil’s hand to wave his own in exasperation.

“I like— I like _cephalopods_ ,” he said, “and fish, and lizards, and snakes, and bugs but don’t tell Daddy, and turtles, and frogs, and, and, and _dinosaurs—_ ”

He was going to keep going, Virgil could tell, and he was working himself up just thinking about it. Virgil held out a hand to calm him.

“So you like animals,” Virgil interjected. “That’s just one thing.”

Logan stopped talking, and walking, as he took in Virgil’s words. Virgil looked back at him, once again fighting the anxiety that he’d said something wrong.

“That _is_ just one thing,” Logan said slowly, eyes widening in realization. He looked up at Virgil, grin growing as he continued, “And I still can have _two_ whole more things!”

Virgil smiled when Logan grabbed his hand again, pulling him forward as the two of them kept walking. “Sure can, kid. What else do you like?”

Logan bobbed his head as they walked. “I like— I like chapter books! And mit-sery books, and books about animals, and I like reading with Papa and Daddy, and I like Ms. Dot and storytime in the playzone, and I like— I like you, Mr. Virgil!”

He beamed up at Virgil, who was trying to figure out how to respond to that sweet sentiment.

“So you like books,” he decided to say. “That’s two things. What’s one more?”

He listened with amusement as Logan made all sorts of pensive noises as he thought. Finally, he gasped, squeezing Virgil’s hand a little in excitement.

“Oh! I know one more I like, and I know it can be just one more because it’s all part of the same group,” he said. Virgil nodded encouragingly.

“What is it?”

Logan beamed. “My family! That’s Daddy and Papa and my twin baby brothers.”

He smiled up at Virgil, looking for his approval. He looked so proud of himself for solving the problem.

“That’s a good one, kid,” he replied, giving him a genuine smile and ignoring the slight distraction that came from being reminded of Logan’s dads. “Your dads will like that very much.”

Logan nodded, not fully listening to him as he stared thoughtfully into the distance.

“Can I draw my twin baby brothers?” he pondered. “They’re not even here yet, and I don’t know what they look like.”

“I’m sure your teacher wouldn’t mind if you drew them,” Virgil replied. The two of them had made it back to the reference desk, but Virgil wanted to wait for Logan to let go of him before sitting back down.

Logan hemmed and hawed, face scrunched up in thought. “I guess I can draw them like baby dolls. I will tell Ms. Christian that they are still in the city and they will come home in May.”

Virgil couldn’t help but laugh at Logan’s innocence, leaning on the desk when Logan refused to release his hand. “Sounds good.”

Logan nodded happily, looking all around them until his eyes widened at something over Virgil’s shoulder.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, pointing with his free hand to the analog clock on the wall. “Daddy said they will be done when the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 4. I have to go back to the playzone now.”

He finally dropped Virgil’s hand, picking up his backpack and struggling to put it on by himself.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Virgil said in a tone that was only half joking. He grabbed the backpack by the straps and helped guide Logan’s arms into it.

“Thanks for visiting me today, Logan,” he said. Logan grinned, bouncing on his heels as Virgil helped him with his bag.

“You’re very much welcome! Thank you for talking about kindergarten with me!”

Finally, the tiny backpack was on, and Logan stood there smiling like the cat who got the cream. Virgil couldn't help smiling down at him in return.

“I’ll see you next time, Logan. Good luck at kindergarten tomorrow. And no running,” he added quickly as Logan shifted his weight like he was about to take off.

He didn’t miss the quick pout from the hyperactive kid, but it quickly melted away to another grin as the door to the community room opened, the lobby now filled with the book club members.

“Yes, Mr. Virgil!” was all he said before darting off, very clearly running, but Virgil didn’t mind. He let his eyes follow him among the book displays, weaving back and forth through the crowd until he reached the two men standing together by the playzone.

From here, Virgil couldn’t see Logan’s face anymore, but he could make out the smile Patton gave to his son, and the way Janus reached down to ruffle the kid’s hair with a familiar touch. He felt his cheeks warm as he looked at them; it was weird to think he’d become so infatuated by them after just one meeting.

Their eyes raised suddenly in unison, both of them staring right at Virgil from across the building. His breath caught in his throat and he found himself fighting the urge to duck.

Patton grinned, raising a hand in a friendly wave. Janus just nodded at him once; his lips were moving, but Virgil obviously couldn't hear what he was saying.

His lips quirked into a smile before he realized what was happening. His cheeks got a little warmer, but for some reason he didn’t seem to mind. After a beat, he waved back.

Both men acknowledged his wave with glances of gratitude that flickered between him and Logan. He nodded in understanding, and with that, all three of them left the playzone and rounded the corner to the checkout desk.

Virgil sighed, dropping back into his rolly chair. The distraction from Logan hadn’t taken long, and he still had quite some time until he was done with his shift.

But as he leaned back in his chair, mentally preparing himself to help the next patron trying to use the shitty printer, he realized he was smiling. He didn’t stop smiling for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, here is the guide to Logan's incorrect words:
> 
> Behave-er: Behavior  
> Try-er: Trial  
> Clemen-time: Clementine  
> Responsible-ty: Responsibility  
> Mit-sery: Mystery
> 
> This chapter turned out to be largely kid!Logan fluff and I am 100% okay with that. I hope the 'card flipping' behavioral system makes sense. My elementary school did it, but I have no idea how universal it is lmao. Edit: [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/90m3o9/flip_your_card_the_scariest_part_of_my_elementary/) is a Reddit thread about the 'flip your card' system, which was a standard facet of my life from kindergarden to fifth grade xD
> 
> Anyways, follow me on tumblr at [olliedollie1204!](olliedollie1204.tumblr.com)


End file.
